Throughout the tenure of the Double Trio Trey Gunn’s contributions were often unvalued or entirely obscured by an indifferent front-of-house mix. Listening to his rich soloing The Sheltering Sky on this second night at Berkeley should be enough to correct any impression that Gunn wasn’t pulling his weight in the band. You can hear Robert’s whoops of encouragement as the track finishes.
Similarly, a short but incisive contribution to the solo section of Three Of A Perfect Pair adds bite to the piece. On Bill Bruford’s favourite piece from the Double Trio, Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream, Gunn is adding dark embellishments around the structure, darting in and around the ornate architecture of the piece.
Finding one’s own space within such a busy and crowded sonic environment was always a challenge for all of the players regardless of the instrument and their overall positioning in the mix. At their best when they all combine into one interlocking force they are simply unstoppable. Elephant Talk may have been around a long time on the setlist but this version sounds so fresh and on-target, that there’s no sense that anyone here is going through the motions.
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